Europe car sales: share of diesel engines 2015-2019, by country
Volvo sells most diesel cars
The greatest share of new passenger cars fitted with a diesel engine were sold by Volvo. In 2019, around six out of ten cars sold by the Swedish carmaker in Europe were reliant on diesel fuel. This figure follows a substantial change from 2015 in which 88 percent of Volvo passenger car sales in Europe were diesel.
Diesel pollution worse than petrol
The diesel scandal uncovered that amounts of the air pollutant nitrogen oxide (NOx) released by diesel cars were in fact exorbitantly higher than testing previously suggested. This was due to software installed by carmakers masking actual emission figures. Diesel pollution would cost taxpayers nearly 56 billion euros in health and non-health related expenses. This was more than five times the amount of petrol pollution costs.